No visit to Disneyland would be complete without a tour of the Haunted Mansion. After approaching this stately manor, you are invited into the entry hall where a slow, funereal musical theme somberly sets the mood as you stand beneath the flickering light of a cobwebbed chandelier.

           Then a panel in the wall opens to invite you into an octagonal den, where you are surrounded by a set of gargoyle candleholders and four family portraits. Soon, however, you notice that the room appears to be stretching. The ceiling is getting higher, the walls are getting taller, and the family portraits are extending into separate scenes of disaster.

           A disembodied voice, who has introduced himself as your "ghost host", informs you that the door through which you entered this room no longer exists. Is there any way out? "There's always my way!" declares the voice just as a crash of thunder and a flash of lightning reveal a skeletal figure hanging by the neck from the ceiling--now so far above you. Suddenly all the lights go out, followed by the sound of something ominous falling and crashing into the middle of the room.

           One of the walls divides into an exit, and you follow a corridor past spooky scenes and the busts of inverted heads until you come to a mammoth cobweb presided over by an enormous spider. There you are invited to be seated in a moving vehicle known as a "Doom Buggy". The vehicle transports you into the bowels of the Mansion, past endless hallways and creaky doors containing unseen monsters. In an alcove, two bony hands try to pry open a sealed casket from the inside. A clock on which a misshappen arm casts its shadow is spinning in reverse.

           You come to a room where a head in a crystal ball--identified as Madame Leotta--is conducting a seance. She is attempting to summon the ghosts. She is eminently successful, for now you come into the ballroom where you witness a "swinging wake" where the transparent guests are in all their spectral finery. Some are entering the room from a hearse-drawn coffin. Some are sitting at a banquet table sharing a birthday--or deathday--cake. Two portraits on the wall are engaged in a never-ending duel with one another. And ghostly dancers are twirling to the music coming from the pipes of a creaky organ. You recognize the music as a livelier version of the theme that greeted you when you entered the Mansion.

           Next you enter a dusty attic where decapitated skulls pop out of unexpected places. A shadow plays a demented version of the bridal march on a piano, where a faded bouquet speaks of a wedding long ago. In the corner is a ghostly bride whose heart thumps visibly and insistently.

           All of a sudden your vehicle exits the mansion into a dark graveyard where an endless procession of transparent spirits are rising from the ground. Then that infectious musical motif--whose hints have set a unifying theme for your tour of this spooky place--suddenly bursts forth into the catchy song that is probably one of the most popular among all the music created for the Disney theme parks: GRIM GRINNING GHOSTS, composed by Buddy Baker, lyrics by Xavier Atencio:

"When the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake Spooks come out for a swinging wake Happy haunts materialize And begin to vocalize Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize..."

           Now, if you think there's no such thing as ghosts, let me direct you to an Old Testament story recorded in 1 Samuel (28:3-15). It describes a nighttime scene as spooky as a haunted mansion.

           Saul is in a state of crisis during his final days as King of Israel. He comes in disguise to a female medium--an Old Testament Madame Leotta--and asks her to conjure up the ghost of Samuel--now dead. Samuel was the prophet whom Saul for so many years had disregarded and humiliated, and without whose counsel Saul has floundered into deeper and deeper trouble. He realizes now the many opportunities he had missed--choices he had made foolishly--chances he had allowed to slip through his fingers. Now only the ghosts of them remain to haunt him.

           And here's the first thing I want to suggest. All of us are surrounded by ghosts. And, as Buddy Baker's music for the Haunted Mansion suggests, some of those ghosts are grim indeed!

           The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham--founder of the school of philosophy known as Utilitarianism--served on the Board of Directors of a hospital in London. When he died, he left his considerable fortune to that hospital, but under one condition. In order for the hospital to keep the money, Bentham himself had to be physically present at every meeting of the Board. So, every month for more than a hundred years after he died, whenever the hospital Board met, the grim remains of Jeremy Bentham were brought to the room and prominently placed at the head of the table.

           If not quite so visibly, at least spiritually there are ghosts in all the rooms of our lives.

           Perhaps, like Saul, we're haunted by the grim ghosts of what might have been, and what might have been done differently. If we're honest, don't we have to admit there are times when every one of us would like to slip away from the crisis of the moment, put on some disguise, seek out some Madame Leotta and reclaim some missed opportunity?

           We don't need to be experts in para-psychology to know that such ghosts affect us all. Maybe it's Sarah Winchester--haunted by all the lives lost through Winchester guns--building that crazy, mammoth mansion in San Jose.

           Or maybe it's Henry Comstock looking back on his claim in 1859 to a silver deposit in Virginia City, Nevada. He was certainly glad at the time to sell that claim for $11,000--but the ghost of that decision began to haunt him. For the Comstock lode proved to be the greatest silver deposit in history, yielding its owners some $340 million during the next thirty years.

           Or maybe it's Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, who in 1938 came up with a fantastic fictional personality introduced to the world in the first issue of ACTION COMICS. Believing that a bird in the hand was better than two in the bush, they decided to sell, for $65 apiece, all their rights in the character they had created: Superman.

           Or maybe it's Benedict Arnold, haunted by the decision to betray his country that engulfed him in shame. When he was dying, he is reported to have said: "Let me die in the old uniform of my country. May God forgive that I ever wore any other!"

           On the evening before the United Kingdom General Election a few years ago, the Conservative candidate for Parliament--a man named Rupert Allison--went out for an Italian dinner. He failed to leave a tip, and all 14 staff members of the restaurant decided to switch their votes to the Liberal Democrat candidate. The next day Rupert lost the election hy 12 votes.

           Get any one of us in a somber, reflective mood, and some grim ghosts begin to emerge.....some things we wish we had said, or hadn't said.....some things we wish we had done, or hadn't done.....some opportunities we wish we had seized when we had the chance.

           A couple went out to dinner on their 50th wedding anniversary. On the way home, she notices a tear in his eye and asks if he's getting sentimental because they're celebrating 50 wonderful years together. He replies, "No, I was thinking about the time before we got married. Your father threatened me with a shotgun and said he'd have me thrown in jail for 50 years if I didn't marry you. Tomorrow I would have been a free man!"

           To be human is to be haunted by ghosts. That's because to be human is to be fallible from the very start. Do you remember that little fellow who had his first arithmetic test at school? "Did you miss any of these?" asked his father after reading over the list of five questions. The little fellow said sheepishly, "Well, only the first two and the last three."

           None of us can consistently achieve perfect scores in the tests of life. Time and again we make mistakes, we stumble, we fall.....and we remember. We're haunted by many a ghost of failing to make the right judgment at the right time.

           Two young people, Nancy and Joe, met in a church youth group. A romance blossomed, then a long time passed by. One day Nancy came to the minister's study. "It's about Joe," she said. "I don' t see him now nearly as often as I used to." "Well," said the minister, "perhaps you should have married him when you had the chance." And Nancy replied, "I did."

           Marriages in crisis are often haunted by the ghosts of what once was, and what seems to have slowly slipped away. Parents in retrospect are often haunted by the ghosts of their own indulgence or neglect. Children in maturity are often haunted by the ghosts of their own self-centeredness or indifference.

           The father of Samuel Johnson--that English literary giant of another generation--was a book seller, selling books from town to town, during Johnson's childhood. Once when the father was very ill, tired and worn down by his constant struggle to support his family, he asked young Samuel to go to the market at Uttoxeter to take his place. Young Samuel refused to do so. His father dressed and made the arduous trip himself--never saying a word of reproach to his son. Fifty years later, the renowned and prosperous Samuel Johnson, now his name a household word throughout England, stood bareheaded for hours close by a spot at Uttoxeter where once his father's bookstall had stood. People stared at him as he stood there almost motionless in the midst of wind and rain. He was being haunted by the ghost of his quickly aging father who had asked of him a small favor, and he had smugly refused.

           Even whole societies are haunted by the past.....when social disruption tells the story of grim, lingering ghosts--old injustices, squandered resources, crushing debts, missed opportunities. Listen to Abraham Lincoln, speaking at that time of great civil crisis in our country: "Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by another drawn with the sword, as it was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"

           So here's the first thing our scripture lesson and Buddy Baker's music suggest to us: We're surrounded by grim ghosts from the past that haunt each and every one of us.

           But the second thing they suggest to us is that not all the ghosts that surround us are grim and unwelcome. Touring the Haunted Mansion turns out to be anything but an unpleasant experience. Buddy Baker's music gradually introduces us to a delightful cast of characters who "come out to socialize". Indeed, by the time we come to the end of our visit, we're even delighted to take one of these grinning ghosts home with us.

           So it is that we're surrounded--not only by grim ghosts, but by grinning ghosts as well--ghosts that smile upon us with gifts of grace. Sometimes, like Saul in the Old Testament, we come to realize that these grinning ghosts may be our greatest source of hope. Then, like him, we, too, may seek to return to, and affirm, the truth they represent. "Bring up Samuel for me."

           The story of each of our lives has many "ghost" writers. Many people have had--and continue to have--an influence upon what we are. One fellow was trying to explain to another about phrenology. He said, "They feel the bumps on your head and tell what kind of a man you are." His friend replied, "If they examined the bumps on my head, they'd know what kind of a wife I have."

           If not our heads, at least our personalities carry the marks of impact with other people--for better and for worse. And the challenge of life is to conjure up the best of those relationships, and to pay attention to them. "Bring up Samuel for me."

           None of us--not even the most talented--is a self-made person. Always lingering in the background are the ghosts of others--who have shaped, guided, inspired. Once, after an exceptional rehearsal conducted by Toscanini--the entire orchestra rose spontaneously and cheered him again and again. It was their testimony that behind their own performance was his skill as a conductor. When the applause subsided, Toscanini seemed somewhat surprised and embarrassed. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "Not me.....it's Beethoven!"

           So many of the most meaningful qualities in our lives are the product of grinning ghosts whose value and truth are too vital to be lost in a particular dimension of time and space. A number of years ago the late Edward Bok, who gave America the famous Singing Tower in Florida, imported from England a large flock of English nightingales. The nightingales didn't survive in Florida. But before they died off, the mockingbirds had learned their song. And so, still today, the mockingbirds of Florida are singing the song of the English nightingales. A ghost is alive, because the song goes on.

           In an even larger sense, everything worthwhile in the world--every great human achievement and institution and cause--is the perpetuation of grinning ghosts.....the creative spirits that helped set them in motion, and that live on to sustain them.

           Earlier in this century Lydia Trimble put her life into the building of Hwa Nan College for Women in Foochow, in China. During the Second World War she was living in Foochow, having retired but not willing to leave the land of her adoption. One night one of the main college buildings caught fire. As she stood with the crowd watching it burn, one of her students cried, "O, Doctor Trimble, Hwa Nan is burning." "Hwa Nan burning?" retorted Miss Trimble. "Hwa Nan cannot burn. Hwa Nan is the hundreds of women who have graduated from her halls and are serving all over China. Hwa Nan is a spirit, a life incarnate in her alumnae. That cannot burn."

           To me, one of the joys of traveling is the opportunity to visit places populated with the ghosts of great personalities--the pioneers, the decision makers, the folk heroes, the artists--who live on in the texture of the countryside that produced them. To visit Salsburg in Austria is to have a rendezvous with the ghost of Mozart. To visit Mount Vernon is to encounter the ghosts of George and Martha Washington. To travel the Mississippi River by steamboat is to rub shoulders with the ghosts of Mark Twain and a colorful collection of personalities that live on in the regions of middle America.

           Most of our holidays and monuments pay tribute in various ways to the outstanding personalities in our past. We dedicate buildings and streets to keep alive the memory of their presence.....although we sometimes make errors in judgment. I remember hearing about an inscription on a water tank of a small college north of St. Louis which said: "This college was founded by our beloved president, William Johnson. Born 1855. Died 1911. Capacity, 150,000 gallons."

           There truly is a sense in which the ghosts of decisive personalities have an unlimited capacity to live on, and reach out, and influence the course of human events.

           And here's where we should move on to the third and final thing to acknowledge: that God himself is a Holy Ghost or a Holy Spirit.

           Now, I realize the Christian doctrine of the Trinity sometimes seems confusing. I remind you of the little girl who lived across the street from a cemetery. Often she listened to ministers speaking the trinitarian words of committal at the close of funeral services. One day she decided to have a funeral service of her own in her backyard. She thought she would bury her teddy bear. After digging a grave, she solemnly lowered the toy bear into the ground, saying ever so seriously the words she thought she had heard the ministers say again and again in the burial service: "In the name of the Father of the Son, and in the hole you goes!"

           When we cut through all the theological definitions of the Trinity, it amounts to this: God the Father, who is our Creator--and God the Son, who is our Redeemer--are even now alive and present with us as God the Holy Ghost.

           Let me suggest an analogy for the Trinity that has been helpful to me: H2O is a chemical description that sometimes has the form of ice. Ice is H2O at a temperature quite different from the normal temperature in which we live and move and have our being. In this sense, there's a dimension to God that is infinitely beyond our ability to comprehend. That's like God the Father--the Creator of this vast, often incredibly cold universe in which our solar system is but a speck.

           But that same chemical description, H2O, has a far more familiar form for us--and that's water. Water is H2O as we know it best--ice that has melted into the form we use daily to drink, to wash, to stay alive. In this sense, God the Father has come to us, and made himself known to us, in the temperature we can best understand, and relate to--giving us a glimpse of himself, his will, his promises, in a human vessel such as ourselves. We even use water for baptizing in his name.....and when we drink the communion cup, it is in remembrance of him--who once said, "Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." (John 4:14)

           But now there's a third form of H2O. Its chemical components are the same, but as it evaporates or reaches a higher temperature, it becomes steam or vapor--invisible, yet part of the very air we breathe. And, in this sense, God the Holy Ghost is forever present with us. The story of Pentecost is the story of a mighty wind that descended upon the disciples following the Resurrection of Christ, filling them with his Spirit.....the same Spirit that was present when God the Father said to Jesus at his baptism, "You are my Son, the Beloved." (Mark 1:11)

           And there is the key word. For God--in whatever form he is manifest--Father, Son, Holy Ghost--has the same chemical formula. The author of 1 John expressed it this way: "God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them." (1 John 4:16)

           God the Holy Ghost is God alive, even in you and me, with the promise and the power of his love. And as we forge our own relationships with that love, his Spirit becomes our bridge to eternity.

           I want to close with the story of a young girl who had lost her father in an accident. She had been very close to her father, and was comforted by the promise that he was safe in God's hands. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who's done so much research in this area, says that in her experience she's never found a child who didn't believe in life beyond death. It was not many months later that this little girl and her mother had to face the agonizing news that th child herself was terminally ill. For long hours each day, they talked, questioned, and accepted what had to be accepted.

           One day during their period of waiting, the mother asked her daughter if there was anything she especially wanted her mother to do. The little girl thought for a moment, then smiled with a confidence to outshine any angel. She said, "When we go to the cemetery, please have them turn on all the lights in the ambulance, and turn on the siren as loud as it can go.....because I want God and Daddy to know I'm coming.....to know I'm on my way to be with them forever!"